The Coalition of Essential Schools Small Schools Project, a five-year initiative funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, seeks to enhance the character, quality, and sustainability of small schools while spurring broader change in the public education system. The project involves the creation of 10 new CES public high schools, the conversion of five existing large high schools into small schools, the formation of a network of 20 "mentor schools" and the launch of CES ChangeLab, a web site with behind-the-scenes access to the tools and strategies of the CES Mentor Schools.
The CES Small Schools Project is dedicated to supporting new and reconfigured CES schools that are small, instructionally powerful and sustainable. Based on CES National's mission of effecting broader change within the public education system, the project also aims to support new, mentor and improved schools in areas where they have the potential to contribute to the transformation of a district or state or to influence key public policies.
The mentor, new, and conversion school teams will come together through the activities of a critical component of the Small Schools Project: the Small Schools Project Network. The Network provides opportunities for professional development and for participants in the project to exchange ideas and practices with one another. It will also serve as a forum to explore ways to influence public policy and to create the political and policy climate to sustain their work. Through the Network, the new, mentor and conversion school teams will all have the opportunity to grow and learn from one another, while contributing to and enriching the broader network of CES schools. The mentor schools will share their innovative practices and offer resources to both the new CES schools and other schools seeking to become more rigorous, personalized and equitable.
Through this project, we are committed to meeting the needs of young people and communities that have traditionally been educationally underserved; the majority of new, mentor and conversion schools will primarily serve students of color and students from low-income families. Most of the schools will also be located in urban areas. While maintaining these commitments, we are also seeking a diverse pool of schools; therefore, individual selections will also be informed by the overall balance of the cohort. For example, we would not want all of the new schools to be located in the same geographic region.
The first five mentor schools were selected in November 2003 and the selection process is currently underway for the first cohort of new schools, conversion schools and the second group of mentor schools.
As more and more schools become involved and as we begin to open our first schools, CES and the Small Schools Project will play an exponentially greater role in shaping the national conversation around effective school reform and in propelling the movement towards high quality, equitable, small schools.